1868

Daily Gleaner

1891, January 10 p4

Closely identified with St. Paul's from 1845 to1871 was the Montego Bay Academy, which for twenty-six years tendered good service to Jamaica in sending forth a large number of well-educated youth, many of whom now fill important positions in the island. Some of whom are now ministers of Episcopalian, Wesleyan, and Baptist churches, while others are in the ministry of the Prebyterian Church. Others are doctors, lawyers, planters, penkeepers, merchants, engineers, or are in the Customs service or in other public offices. Among the ministers may be named the Rev H Sharpe, Rector of the Parish Church, Montego Bay, the Rev. T. M. Gecldes, Coke Chapel Kingston, and the Rev. T.C. Hutchings, St. James. Over one hundred "missionary students," that is without charge to themselves or parents or guardians, were sent out by the Academy, most of them becoming teachers of day-schools. In this way through its missionary students and its "public scholars," as they were called in its annual reports, the Academy made in its time a large contribution to the higher education of the island.

1898 February 26 p1

Native catechists began to be employed, the first of whom was George McLachlan. An Academy for the training of schoolmasters and catechists was began at Bonham Spring in 1841, with Mr. George Miller as tutor. Through the good offices of the proprietor these premises were occupied. rent free, until 1852, when the institution was removed to Montego Bay and continued for long years to occupy the foremost place in this island in the thoroughness of the education supplied. One remark of the editor of a local paper put in evidence is a sufficient attestation of the proficiency of the seminary. Speaking of a recent examination he says : "Without detailing any of the peculiar excellencies of the plan of teaching which these exercises disclosed it is sufficient to say that indubitable evidence was presented to the mind of every observe: that the system pursued is highly calculated to inculcate first principles and to lay a solid foundation in all the departments of learning."

  Vincent D'Oyley, in Development and Disillusion in Third World Education, 1979

  page 14

  By 1841 Presbyterian elementary education

  was so satisfactorily entrenched that Missionary Blyth could insist on an

  academy as a desideratum: it grew quickly from the foundations laid in that

  year in Bonham Spring, so situated that it would receive pupils from feeder

  schools nearby.

  The academy was to serve a rather wide purpose: that of training native

  youths as teachers, catechists, preachers, and missionaries, especially for

  Africa and the West Indies. By 1844, it had the grandiose label “Jamaica:

  West Indian and African Educational and Theological Institution” and was

  moved to Montego Bay, a better site. The enrolment of about forty could be

  divided into two groups: those whose parents paid for a classical education

  and those supported by the mission or friends to become teachers and mis-

  sionaries. When Inspector Cargil visited there in 1846 he found ten boarders

  preparing for teaching roles. For him they read from Caesar’s Commentaries

  and parsed Greek; he concluded that the system was good. Cargil not only

  regarded the academy as the island’s best but noted that it bore comparison

  with many excellent ones in England. Between 1847 and 1863 the missionary

  students fluctuated between eight and fifteen, and the fee-paying ones some-

  times numbered sixty.

  In 1850 the academy continued to accept boys only after they had passed

  through several branches of common education. When a theology tutor,

  Renton, was added around 1850, another master, Miller, concentrated on

  teaching English, history, geography, writing, mathematics, chemistry, and

  Latin. The teacher trainees attended some of the theology lectures. School

  management was taught mainly by precept. An 1854 report noted that

  twenty coloured graduates of the academy discovered admirable gifts for im-

  parting instruction and were conducting schools with great efficiency and

  success. By 1859 there were thirty graduates working in 47 Presbyterian

  schools throughout the island; some others returned to serve with the

  agencies which had paid for their education. The United Presbyterian Church

  in Scotland paid the greater share of the academy’s expenses up to 1864.